How is your prayer life? Is it more like a drive thru or like a sit down 7 course meal?

For the past three weeks our church (Nueva Vida en Cristo) has been challenged in the area of prayer. I'll shamefully admit that often my prayer life reflects more of a drive thru than a personal one on one time with God.  What habits of thinking get us to request in such a manner so quickly?  What is my view of God when I do this?   We don't like it when the only time we see some people is when they want something from us.  Our view of them is that they only need us when they are desperate.  God wants us to show that we are truly dependent on Him.  In Matthew 6 Jesus gives a model prayer.  It gives us an example of how to have a deeper relationship by remembering who God is and who we really are.  God is over everything.  He doesn't make mistakes.  He is good and what He is doing is good.  He understands what we are going through and He cares.  We on the other hand are dependent on God.  We know nothing, really.  We make plenty of mistakes and we tend to be very selfish and not gracious.

Our prayer life should be consistent.  Problems and difficulties in our lives shouldn't be the driving force that brings us to our knees.  God and who He truly is should humble us.  We need God every second of every day but we don't focus on this enough and therefore why we sometimes pray as if we are going through a drive thru rather than enjoying a full course meal with our Lord.

Matthew 6:9-14

9 Pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
    may your name be kept holy.
10 May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
    as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today the food we need,[a]
12 and forgive us our sins,
    as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,[b]
    but rescue us from the evil one.[c]

14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.